The Grommet Wants Unhappy Etsy & Amazon Inventors To Sell on Their Marketplace

The Grommet, the inventor’s e-marketplace, is welcoming Etsy and Amazon sellers to consider an alternative model to paying unpredictable and rising fees for “administration,” advertising, and now “fuel and inflation.”

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Boston-based and founded in 2008, The Grommet earns its revenue by partnering with promising inventor-sellers, then working together to reach potential customers and build their brands.

“At The Grommet, we treat our inventor-sellers as partners, because that’s what they are. When they succeed, we succeed. Our goals are aligned— more product sales equals more revenue for all parties involved,” said Kim Lefko, President, The Grommet.

Inventor-sellers on The Grommet get individual contracts that delineate consistent and predictable pricing terms, the opportunity to lock in large purchase orders with The Grommet (which actively buys inventory from successful partners), and the opportunity to grow even further by selling into partner Ace Hardware and its 4,600 brick-and-mortar stores across the U.S.

Buyers of The Grommet products get free delivery, a decidedly competitive advantage in this environment of rising shipping costs.

“Before they were big,” leading brands like Fitbit, OtterBox, SodaStream, BananaGrams, S’well Stainless Steel Water Bottles, and Mrs. Meyers Clean Day all started building their brands on The Grommet’s e-marketplace.

On April 11, Etsy raised transaction fees on sellers — raising prices for buyers— by 30 percent, from 5 percent to 6.5 percent.

As of Friday, April 15, more than 79,000 had signed a petition asking Etsy to cancel its fee increase.

Starting April 28, Amazon will add a “fuel and inflation” surcharge of five percent to fees it collects from third-party sellers using it for product fulfillment.